Dadadum, Dadachum

I know it's not the end of the week, when I usually write, and I've only watched four episodes of Homicide: Life on the Streets and no movies. But I have finished one book and the end of that book and the beginning of its sequel is the reason I'm writing today.

Today is a very sad day for me...oh my god! It's the 19th!!!! It's the 19th!!!!.....oh. Yeah, uhm. Well, that's a reference only people who have read the series will get. Let's just pretend none of this happened and move quickly on.

As I was saying this is a very sad day as it marks my beginning the final book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, a series that I have now been reading for almost 20 years. (If I actually counted, I'd probably find that it was exactly 19 years.) If we're being honest with ourselves - and if you can't be honest on the Internet, then let's face it, where can honesty be found? - it is mostly HIS fault that it's taken me this long, because it took him so damn long to finish his seven-book opus. But it's also a little my fault as I was slower returning to the series once he did finish it. And I had to go back and re-read the first four books because I'd pretty much forgotten everything about them, except for: 1) A few moments (not even whole scenes) that were un-naturally vivid, and 2) That I loved those books more than anything else he has written...more than most books I've read, actually. I even named one of my dogs Roland, after the gunslinger, the main character.

So today I begin The Dark Tower, book seven of the series that bears the same name and it makes me so excited, and at the same time so sad to think this story is finally coming to a close. But as he says himself in the opening words to the Constant Reader,not even Stephen King can make something last forever.

I know that I can always reread a book and I actually have several months of reading ahead of me (the book weighs a ton). And I also know it's silly to feel this way about fictional characters. But at times fiction can move me more than the world around me and the characters share intimate thoughts that real people never do. I'll be melancholy for a while, but like with the real world, eventually I'll move on. There's a nice John Berendt book of reality waiting for me when this is done and after that, who knows.